Are Your Proposal Letters Losing You Sales?

Source: CPA Practice Management Forum

According to author Burt Bierman, a good proposal letter should be “designed to quickly acquaint the reader with necessary information, while also convincing the reader that the letter's author is the best choice for the job.” It should include “a brief discussion of the problems the proposal is meant to address, and an overview of the salient information in the proposal.”

Unfortunately, in Bierman's experience, most CPA firm proposal letters are wordy, focus on the firm rather than on the prospect, share unnecessary information, and often fail to address the problems for which the prospect is seeking help. Bierman offers the following guidelines:

• In the prospect call, instead of talking about your firm, actively listen to the prospect's needs. The article includes a list of “dialogue questions” designed to elicit a discussion of the prospect's goals, aspirations, fears, and desires.
• Choose three to five critical issues and dedicate one page to each of them in your proposal letter. Explain the issue and show how your services can resolve it.
• Offer proof that you can resolve the prospect's issues by including case studies or testimonials from clients for whom you've solved similar problems or, better yet, by arranging for the prospect to speak to a satisfied client.
• Because readers' attention spans may be short, include an executive summary that outlines the important issues and how your firm can help.
• Don't bury fee information in the back of the proposal – most readers go there first anyway. Instead, include your fee proposal right after the executive summary. If your executive summary does a good job of demonstrating your value, fees will be less of an issue.
• Consider marking your finished proposal letter “draft” to make it easier to adjust the final proposal based on discussions with the prospect.

For the complete article, read “Winning More Engagements by Improving Your Prospect Call and Proposal Letter.”

From CPA Practice Management Forum, CCH Incorporated, 800-449-8114, August 2010, p. 5.